Rami Ungar The Writer

So yeah, Toyland is going to be a lot longer than Rose, and way more than fifty thousand words. I always did like an expansive story.

So as you’re probably aware by now, I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, this month and I’m trying to write a fifty-thousand word novel before the month is out. This is my second time participating, and I’m writing a Gothic horror novel called Toyland about a boarding school haunted by a ghost obsessed with a children’s book. And while I’ve set myself a deadline of January 31st, I’ll try to get as much of it done this month as possible.

In my update last week, I wrote about how I was a little over eleven-thousand words and 3.5 chapters in. As of last night, I’m in the middle of writing Chapter Six and am currently at 21,566 words. So this story’s already into the novella word range, and it’s still going! I bet by the time I done, I bet this book will be four times its current length. Maybe more.*

And honestly, I’d be fine if that turned out to be the case. While it’s still a first draft and there’s still plenty of work to do (not even thinking about editing at this point), I feel like this is some of my most mature writing yet. By this, I mean my voice as a writer has matured. It’s reached a new level, gained from so many years of writing and editing and experimenting. I’m giving up the last of the clumsy bits that mark me as a new or young writer. I’m breaking out of my chrysalis.

Is this making any sense to you? I hope so, otherwise the points above are all meaningless.

Anyway, we’ll have to wait till the final draft comes out before we know for sure just how much I’ve improved as a writer. But in the meantime, I’m enjoying working on this story and seeing it take form. Even though I wrote an outline and I know what’s going to happen, I’m discovering new things with every word. Hell, what words I use are part of the discovery, and they come together to show me just how these scenes I’ve outlined actually shape out.

That’s all for the moment. I’ll be sure to update you all next week, but in the meantime, I promise there will be more than just a review in the meantime. I mean, there will be a review, but there will be more than that.

Anyway, until next time, my Followers of Fear, pleasant nightmares!

How’s your NaNoWriMo going? What’s the writing process for you been like?

*For context, the first Harry Potter book was around seventy-seven thousand words, so that should give you an idea of what we might be dealing with in the future.